Best-selling author J.K. Rowling has criticised television programmes which
romanticise adolescence as "terribly glamorous", saying modern
portrayals of teenagers are "rarely very truthful".

Rowling said teenagers werein reality "often fragile to the point where death seems like a valid alternative to them", leaving them "strangely close to their own mortality".

The author, whose novel The Casual Vacancy tackles teenage issues of self-harm, burgeoning sexuality and crippling lack of confidence, said she found the portrayal on television of teenagers "quite frustrating".

She added it was a "very interesting time of life" she was "very attracted to writing about", but lamented adolescence as something people are "rarely very truthful" about.

Speaking of television programmes watched by modern children, she said teenagers were portrayed as "terribly glamorous and wise-cracking", with "their problems solved in the most ludicrous of ways".

"I find it quite frustrating," the author, who is best known for her Harry Potter series, said. "That's the most obvious example of the way we romanticise adolescence."

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In reality, she said, teenagers were fragile, self-centred and even left contemplating their own mortality as they struggled with growing up.

"I think that as an adolescent you are very fragile, generally speaking," she said. "Obviously it's a time when your empathy is not terribly well developed.

"You are spending a lot of time thinking about yourself."

At a rare public appearance, at the Bath Literature Festival last night, she also spoke of the theme of social disadvantage in her latest novel for adults, which is centred around a fictional parish council election.

"It would be wholly disingenuous of me to write a book like this and say 'I didn't mean anything by it," she admitted.

"I'm shocked by the absolute lack of empathy that can be expressed by people in positions of power - not all people in positions of power - and maybe by some sections of the media," she said.

"And the scapegoating that goes on.

"It's been shown in studies that every time we have a downturn scapegoating becomes rife."

In a wide-ranging interview with author, friend, and artistic director of the festival James Runcie, she also shared her own experience of adolescence, jokingly confessing her first kiss was aged 12 at a disco.

Speaking in front of an audience of fans, many of whom gave her a standing ovation, she added she was currently working on a new children's book, tentatively intended to be shorter than Harry Potter and aimed at a younger readership.

A planned adaptation of The Casual Vacancy is also in the pipeline with the BBC, although no casting decisions have been made yet.